One Of the Forgotten
by Smaointe Salach
Summary: Re-Upload! I'm Back! * * A man is reunited with a girl, but she is no longer the child he left behind in Westeros. A man has heard that a girl has grown into a beautiful young woman. It is even better than has been told. * *


She stalked down the alley like the cat that she was in name, clinging to the wall and clutching her dagger in her hand. Her grip was at once tense and delicate. She was expertly trained for precisely this moment – the moment when she would strike from behind like a phantom.

Her victim walked nonchalantly through the street, whistling a merry little tune as though he had all the time in the world to live. _Well_, the girl who had been known as Arya Stark thought to herself, _he does not have all the time in the world_. _He has but a moment before I snuff him out like a candle_.

She smirked, more internally than externally, and said a prayer to the Many-Faced God who would claim another life today. And then she struck. She plunged the dagger into the man's neck, and blood neatly trickled out in rippling surges. She had severed precisely the right cord; he fell to the earth in a heap and did not cry out or even twitch. He was dead in an instant.

"_Valar Morghulis,"_ whispered Arya, as she stood above him, and she swiped the blade of her dagger on the man's linen shirt.

She returned to the room where she'd been staying the past year. She lived alone now, here in Braavos. She'd been released to live alone on her sixteenth name day, and now she had the independence she'd been craving for years. She slinked up the steps of the boarding house and shoved the coins she'd earned for her handiwork into her pocket. As she did, she whistled the same tune the man she'd just killed had been whistling.

Arya put the key to her room in the door and turned it with a loud, satisfying _click_. She switched from whistling the strange little Braavosi tune to humming it as she entered the room and shut the door behind her.

Perhaps she had grown complacent, entering her own room day after day, but she instantly realized that today was not like those other days.

Someone was in the room.

Arya stopped humming, slowly so as not to alert the intruder that she knew he was there. The room had no windows and was pitch black, so Arya could not see the person that she could sense in the corner opposite her. Even without her sight, Arya could tell where the intruder was located. That skill she had gained from her time as a blinded neophyte.

Assassins did not have friends, but they had many enemies. Arya strongly suspected the intruder was not in her room for sociable reasons. She lit a dimly flickering lantern and murmured calmly,

"Show yourself."

When the intruder stepped out of the shadows, Arya gasped. She recognized him instantly. His face had been changed back to the one she'd known long ago, in her days as a young girl in Westeros. When she'd ordered him to kill for her. It was Jaqen H'ghar – at least, that was the name by which she had known him.

"Have you come to kill me?" Arya asked, her voice trembling.

"A man does not see a girl for many years, and this is the first question she asks?" Jaqen half-smiled cockily back at her, taking a bite of an apple he held.

"Well, have you?"

"No. A man has come to visit," Jaqen answered. "A man has heard all sorts of rumors - that a girl has grown skilled in her trade… that she is formidable and fearsome to behold. A man has heard that a girl is the best assassin in all of Braavos. A man has heard that a girl has grown into a beautiful woman."

Arya took a trembling breath. Jaqen was just as handsome as she remembered him, though she'd had little more than a girlhood crush on him back then. Now, he seemed within reach, standing here in the corner of her room, clad in a black linen shirt and tight black pants and boots. His hair, half white and half red, hung in his gleaming eyes. His arrogant grin made Arya swoon a little – she couldn't help herself. Though she suspected him to be far older than he seemed, he didn't look very old at all in this guise.

"Has a man heard right, then?" Arya asked Jaqen, her voice sounding stronger than she felt.

"It is far better than has been told. A girl – a _woman _- is positively stunning." Jaqen grinned widely at her and took another bite of apple.

"It is good to see you," Arya admitted. "It was your coin, and your words, that brought me here to Braavos. Without you, I'd still be stuck in Westeros. I'd… well, I don't know where I'd be exactly, but I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be happy."

"Is a girl happy?"

"More happy now, to see you," Arya said sheepishly. "You always made me feel safe."

"That was never a man's intention," Jaqen grinned. "A man's intention was justice. But if a girl felt safe as a consequence, well…" he shrugged, "the Red God is good."

"I _am_ happy," Arya contended, "but lonely. I've lived alone for a year now, all alone. How did you do it for so long? I never talk to _anyone_, and I've never been with a man – any man."

She blushed hard at this, not knowing at all why she was telling Jaqen this secret. It wasn't so shameful, after all. She was only seventeen; being a virgin was not the worst thing, but admitting loneliness… that was far below her.

"A girl has never been touched?" Jaqen chose to seize on that part of what he'd been told.

Arya just shook her head and looked away, into the shadows of the other corner of the room. She leaned back on the wall and slid down, until her hands reached the floor.

"Would a girl like to be touched?" Jaqen's voice was softer now, gentler than Arya had ever heard from him in the days when she'd known him, "by a man?"

"Not just any man," Arya answered, her voice rasping in the dark room.

Jaqen set his apple on top of the chest of drawers next to where he stood and wiped his hands on his tight pants. He chewed a last bite of the fruit and swallowed it, looking satisfied. He strode confidently across the little room and crouched down in front of where Arya sat with her knees tucked into her chest.

He was _exactly _as she remembered him. The smell of him – earth and citrus – and the mischievous gleam in his eyes were precisely as Arya remembered. She had seen him over and over again through the years, in dreams and visions.

"When I was blind," she murmured, "I still saw you."

Jaqen gave her a mild little smile and reached out to brush his fingertips against her hair.

"A man wanted a girl, even those many years ago," he said, his accent thicker than usual for some reason.

Arya giggled. "Then something is wrong with you," she told him. "I was a child."

"A man did not act on his inclinations," Jaqen reminded her. "A man could tell what was coming and has waited until now, until the girl has grown into a woman."

"Almost. Very nearly," Arya said self-consciously, looking down at her small breasts. She glanced up to see Jaqen's eyes had followed hers to her chest, and her cheeks reddened even more.

"Is a man permitted to touch a girl?" Jaqen asked huskily, sounding suddenly aroused. His eyes met hers, and now Arya saw in them a fire that she had never seen, or perhaps never noticed, before.

Arya licked her bottom lip and nodded at Jaqen.

His actions then were furtive; he moved in nearly as cat-like a fashion as Arya normally did. Jaqen seized Arya around the waist, grabbing tightly onto her black leather vest that she wore over a white linen shirt. He hoisted her back up to a standing position, but Arya stood about a foot shorter than Jaqen, so he leaned down to touch her.

Jaqen started with Arya's face. He stroked her forehead gently with his calloused fingertips, then let them trail down over her cheeks and nose to her chin. Arya sighed and tipped her head back, allowing Jaqen access to her smooth neck. This, too, he stroked gently, tracing his fingers over her skin until he reached her décolleté. With his other hand, he reached around her back and deftly pulled at the strings that bound her shirt together. He slid her vest up over her head and tossed it to the floor, where it landed with a little "thump." Then the shirt was free to fall down over Arya's shoulders, baring her chest.

Arya resisted the urge to cover herself with her hands. This was her Jaqen H'ghar. He would keep her safe – wouldn't he? To busy her hands, she put them on Jaqen's smooth face, pressing her warm little palms against his cheeks. As Jaqen looked upon her exposed breasts, a flash of wonderment crossing his gaze, Arya leaned up to kiss him.

She worried that he wouldn't kiss her back. She worried that he would push her away, that he would think her too bold or that he wouldn't want such intimacy with her. But he _did _kiss her back, urging her lips open with a strong tongue that engaged hers in a delicate but well-orchestrated dance. Arya sighed longingly into his mouth, for she'd never been kissed like this before, and she wanted more and more of it. Jaqen gave her an appreciative little grunt in response, and his hands reached for her chest.

He began caressing her breasts, gently at first but then with more insistence. He skimmed his fingers around the round bases of them and grazed them over her nipples, but soon he was massaging them with his whole hand.

Arya kept kissing him while he did it. She refused to stop. She wanted to kiss him forever and a day, she liked it so well. Finally, she caught her breath, panting frantically as she leaned up against to wall. Jaqen leaned even further down and caught a breast in his mouth, now free to explore her. Arya cried out, partly in pain as his teeth nipped at her, but also in immense pleasure.

Then she looked ahead of her and noticed that the front of his tight trousers was bulging enormously, and she knew she had him terribly worked up. Smirking to herself as Jaqen kissed her breast, Arya took him by the shoulders and pushed him back so he was standing up.

"A girl does not enjoy it?" Jaqen asked doubtfully, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"A girl _does_ enjoy it," Arya answered. "So, too, apparently, does a man." She gestured down to the erection raging in his trousers, and Jaqen grinned roguishly at her.

"Tonight is for a girl," he told her. "A man will take care of himself later."

"Eww!" Arya cried. "Jaqen!" She looked him seriously in the eye. "I want you."

"A man thinks… a man thinks tonight is not the night for a girl to be taken." Jaqen looked down at Arya apologetically and shrugged.

"Wha…" Arya stammered. She had been convinced while she was kissing him that she would be losing her virginity tonight. "W-will there be other nights?" she asked shakily.

"But of course," Jaqen answered. "Many, many nights."

He leaned over to where the lantern hung and opened it. He blew out the flame, and suddenly the room was bathed in darkness.

An instant later, before she could collect her thoughts, Arya heard the door to her room open and shut, and saw a brief flash of light from the hallway.

"Jaqen?" she whispered, her voice trembling. There was no answer. He was gone.

* * *

Arya collapsed onto the low bed as though she'd never slept before. She didn't even bother taking off her vest, leggings, or skirt. She had worked a long day, had traveled far outside the city and back, and her feet and calves were aching terribly.

She had many regrets in her life, perhaps too many for a girl her age. As she huddled against her rough blanket on a lumpy mattress, Arya reflected on a few of those regrets. She hadn't told her father enough how much she loved him, and then, before she could, he was gone. She had been unkind to her sister, and now she had no idea where Sansa was. She had killed so many people as a Faceless Man, and sometimes a tiny part of her mind questioned whether or not all of them were called to die.

And now she had a new regret. She'd been reckless and foolhardy when Jaqen H'ghar had shown up. That was weeks ago now, but Arya was still perseverating on it. She'd opened for him like so much of a flower, letting him peel off her clothes and paw at her body. She shuddered now, thinking back to the relationship they'd once had, where he had been her guardian of sorts, her sentinel. She had been but a pesky little nuisance, she'd thought, not an object of lust and desire.

She had been wrong. So very, very wrong, apparently. Jaqen had seized the opportunity to touch Arya as though it was the very last chance he'd ever have to touch a female. And he'd dared come back to her in his old face! He'd told her Jaqen H'ghar was dead, he'd changed his face, and he'd left her with a coin and some words she didn't understand. Now, he let her call him by his old name. He let her see his old face. And he did much more than that.

Arya was not one for crying. She never had been. But now, lying on her stomach with her head crushed against a clumpy pillow, she felt her eyes burning and her cheeks growing warm with shame and sadness. It didn't matter if she let Jaqen touch her or not. She was still alone.

Or, at least, she thought she was, until she heard the soft sound of a throat clearing from across the room.

Of course, Arya knew it was him, but nonetheless, she whipped out her dagger and jumped up into a defensive position on the bed. She could tell exactly where he was – her senses had been sharpened and honed by her time in blindness, and she didn't need light to see him.

"Get out of my room," she said harshly, and she heard a low rumble of laughter in response.

"A girl asked for more. A man is here for more."

"You're disgusting, Jaqen. You took advantage of me. Now, get out, before I kill you." Arya's trembling voice belied her words.  
"A girl knows full well that a man would kill her first," Jaqen said, his own voice suddenly like cold stone.

"Let's find out."

There was the hiss of flame as a lantern was lit, and then Arya could see him. Perhaps he needed the light more than she did. Maybe he just wanted to see her. In any case, he half-grinned at her, at the sight of her crouching and snarling at him, her teeth and weapon bared.

"Put down the knife, Arya Stark," he said softly.

"Arya is dead," she responded.

"A man has no other name to call a girl."

"I could say the same about you, Jaqen H'ghar." She spit the last two words with contempt.

He sighed and looked her over from head to toe. She had certainly grown in the five years since last they'd met. Her chestnut hair was long now, past her shoulders. She only returned to this appearance in the evenings when she came back to the boarding house, and that was so that she appeared as one person to the innkeeper and quite another to the people she assassinated and any potential witnesses. Nonetheless, every once in a while, Arya - No-One - felt rather out-of-place in her own skin.  
In this moment, she felt enormously self-conscious as Jaqen hungrily examined every inch of her.

"Stop looking at me," Arya insisted, realizing she sounded quite childish even to her own ears. "I've not seen nor heard from you in years, and this is the greeting you give me? Lust and avarice?"

"A girl has encountered a man many times in the last five years, Arya Stark," Jaqen vowed. "A man was once a fishmonger on the docks, here in Braavos. A man was once a beggar on the corner with a cat at his side. A man was a crone telling fortunes in an old house and saw you walk by his window."

Arya narrowed her eyes. "And how did you know it was me?" she demanded, though in the last few years she had learned the answer to her own question.

"A man simply… knew." Jaqen shrugged and leaned casually back against the wall behind him. "A girl's voice… the way a girl carried herself… the glint in her eyes… always, it was the same. A girl may have been Roway Nopato, milliner to the ladies of Braavos, but to me she was always Arya Stark. Always very good, lovely girl. Always moving like a cat. Silent. Smooth. Always lovely, no matter who a girl was."

Arya couldn't help but smile a bit at those words, at the thought that he'd been with her after all through all these years.

"When a girl was blind," Jaqen continued, "A man would watch and be her eyes, though she did not need them. A man often watched a girl practicing dancing lessons, or skulking silently through the alleyways of Braavos. A man has not seen a girl in this face for too long now. Two years, it has been."

Arya still stood on the low bed, but had risen to stand straighter. When Jaqen H'ghar swiftly crossed the little chamber and stood before her, their faces were nearly even. He slithered his arms around Arya's torso without asking permission and murmured quietly into her ear,

"A girl has been sorely missed. A Lovely Girl has turned into an even lovelier Woman. A woman is made to be touched, to be admired and adored..."

"Kiss me, please," Arya mumbled, feeling the tremor of her shaking breath against her dry lips. She snaked her arms around Jaqen's shoulders and ensnared her fingers in his long hair.

He did not need to be asked twice. He pulled her flush against his body, pressing his hand firmly against the small of her back to hold her against him. His mouth crushed against hers with such sudden ferocity that Arya squealed, startled. Weeks ago, when he'd kissed her, he'd been gentle, slow, soft. Tonight he seemed fervent and anxious.

He buried his free hand in her hair, snarling it in his fist, clutching desperately to her as his tongue engaged hers in a wild dance. He breathed - panted, really - through his nose as he kissed her passionately. Arya sensed something different about him this time around. He was not reserved; he was unashamed. He held nothing back. He was giving himself to her, fully, tonight. Good, Arya thought, for she wanted every last bit of him.

As he kissed her, Arya could feel his hardness grow against her, straining against the tight fabric of his leggings and pressing insistently against Arya's thigh. She reached between them and stroked her fingertips gently over the bump in the fabric, the rigid lump that had grown there. At her touch, Jaqen hissed and pulled away suddenly from their kiss, panting and grinning.

"Aagh..." he whispered, gently seizing Arya's wrist. "If a girl is not careful, a man will not be able to control himself."

"Good," Arya insisted, grinning wickedly. She desperately wanted him, now more than ever, as he gazed at her with his piercing blue eyes cutting through the dim lamplight.

But Jaqen shook his head slightly, scratching at his scalp anxiously. "No, Lovely Girl," he said. "A man will wait his time to take a girl. A girl is like a flower that must be allowed to blossom properly before being plucked from the Earth."

"I'm ready, Jaqen," Arya said, wrenching her fingers from Jaqen's grasp and gently running them up and down the shaft of his erection through the material of his trousers. She could tell from the hungry look in Jaqen's eyes that he was ready, too, but his next words belied his expression.

"It will not be this night, Lovely Girl," he cooed, petting her hair and taking a fistful of her linen shirt in his other hand.

"There are other ways," Arya reminded him, stealthily untying the laces at his waist and gently urging the loosened pants down over his hips. If he would not take her body, she would take his. She would please him in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, he would change his mind and decide he wanted her after all.

This time, as Arya struggled with Jaqen's clothes, he did not fight her off but instead entangled both of his hands in her chestnut locks, massaging her scalp with his rough, calloused fingertips. Those fingers gripped her head more firmly as she lowered herself onto her knees on the lumpy mattress, the waistband of Jaqen's pants still in Arya's lithe little hands as she continued yanking them down.

She could see him then, all of him, in the dim and flickering light. He was long, and thick, and she could practically see the pulsation of his member as his heart raced. Best of all, Jaqen was hard - hard for her, for Arya. She gulped with a blend of anxiety and hunger and sank onto her knees, looking straight ahead at the erection awaiting her attentions.

She reached a trembling hand out to it, to him, and one by one wrapped her fingers around his shaft. He hissed again, letting air out through his teeth as he adjusted to the feel of her hand on his bare flesh.

"Should a girl stop?" Arya teased his style of speech, grinning coquettishly up at him. Jaqen ignored the jab and simply clenched his eyes shut, tipped his chin back, and shook his head no.

Then Arya leaned forward a bit and, very nervously indeed, enveloped the tip of Jaqen's member with her soft lips, which she first licked to moisten them. She swept her tongue around the tip inside her mouth and bobbed her head forward a bit, doing what felt natural and right. At the sensation, Jaqen moaned in a low growl and his fingers tightened on Arya's scalp.

"A man suspects it will not take long," he murmured with some degree of embarrassment, as Arya repeated the bobbing motion, this time bringing her fist forward and back with her mouth.

"Mmmm..." Arya's voice vibrated against Jaqen's flesh as she began moving faster and faster on him, his shaft now well lubricated by her saliva. She began to swirl her fist up and around the tip and down the shaft in twisting motions, accompanied by deep bobs into her throat. This she repeated not fifteen times before Jaqen moaned loudly than he had continuously been doing. His fingers gripped Arya's head desperately and he tried to pull her off, but Arya stayed exactly where she was, knowing that he was soon to climax.

When he did, her mouth was abruptly filled with wet, warm bitterness. It tasted awful, and yet she cherished it because it came from him. Arya managed to swallow the bitter fluid. If she could fight with swords and survive a punishment of blindness, she could certainly handle a mouthful of a man's essence.

Ten minutes later she was lying on her side in the bed, staring at Jaqen's face as he lay beside her. He'd since pulled on his pants again, but he'd cradled Arya's body close to his.

"Will you stay the night?" Arya asked timidly.

"A man will not leave a girl," he promised, kissing her forehead. "At least, not until morning."

"When will you take me?"

Jaqen half-smiled wryly and sighed. "Lovely girl. Lonely girl. Silly girl. A man will take a girl when there is no other way."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Arya demanded, but her half-lidded eyes were heavy with sleep, and she could feel herself fading away.

"A girl will know what it means when it is true. Goodnight."

* * *

"Valar morghulis..." Arya pounced from her perch in a window and, in one swoop, brought her victim down and wrenched his neck, breaking it instantly. The man landed in a crumpled heap in the dark, deserted alley, silent and unmoving. Arya glanced over her shoulder to see Jaqen eyeing her through the window she'd just left, and she smiled wryly at him.

"That," she declared, "is how I kill, my friend." She dusted off her hands as if cleaning them of her sins and stepped carelessly away from the heap that had once been a breathing man.

She was wearing a different face just now, and so was Jaqen, for they were working and mustn't be recognized. She appeared as a young woman, pretty, still, for she knew Jaqen could see her. She stood tall and curvy. Her hair was long and curly, blonde, and her face was rounder, but her eyes were very nearly her own. Jaqen, for his part, was a swarthy sailor type with missing teeth and a black eye. He'd deliberately made himself unattractive, Arya thought, but she still wanted him.

She brushed past him, down the dank alley, and thought back to the words he had spoken when he had handed her the coin so long ago,

"If you would learn, you must come with me."

Oh, that she had, right then and there, gone with him to Braavos and never left his side. Why had she let him walk away from her? She would not be making that mistake again.

Jaqen followed Arya down snaking paths and through dark streets in what was, admittedly, a shady part of Braavos even in the blazing sun. In the night, it was darker than could be imagined. Finally, Arya came upon a tavern and noted the pangs of hunger in her stomach with some despair. She had little coin upon her, but would have to make it stretch. She was famished.

She and Jaqen sat down at a small table in the corner, and Jaqen spoke his first words to Arya since seeing her kill.

"A girl looks lovely at work."

"Is that all you can say, Jaqen?" Arya giggled. "You're not going to compliment my skills or my methods? You're just going to say I look lovely doing it?"

Jaqen shrugged and sighed. "It is what a man noticed most."

Arya bit her lip, half smiling at him, and shook her head with feigned anger. The serving wench arrived and plunked down two flagons of ale and a plate of fish and bread. She held out her hand for coin. Just as Arya reached for her drawstring purse, Jaqen handed over the money.

"That's not necessary, Jaqen," Arya insisted as the plump serving wench waddled away. Jaqen held up a hand gently to silence her.

"A lovely girl must allow a man to buy her a meal in an establishment as quality as this," he joked. Arya looked around them. Upon men's laps, drunken whores laughed uproariously and nearly poured out of their filmy, barely-there Braavosi gowns. Scoundrels gambled at other tables and here and there a few impoverished street urchins wandered the tavern in search of scraps or excess coin. It was loud, and filthy, and dirty. Arya loved it. She looked back to Jaqen and grinned, clinking her flagon against his before gulping down the thick, bitter ale.

Three nights had passed since last she had seen him, and she had missed him horribly. It was as though spending a night with him in her bed had sewn a part of him to her, then in the morning the stitches had been brutally ripped when he left.

The bread and fish tasted so good after a day of not eating that Arya momentarily forgot about her subpar surroundings. She ate it noisily and ungracefully and was grateful for how loud the tavern was so that she blended in.

Jaqen also tucked into the food, seeming to relish the roasted fish and tough bread on the wooden trencher before him. He, like Arya, chugged his pale ale with gusto and grinned at her over the edge of his horn tankard.

As they continued eating, they hardly spoke, and that seemed fine for both of them. They were not people of many words, and now did not seem like the place for them, anyway. But then, Arya blurted,

"When you move on, Jaqen, will you let me become one of The Forgotten Ones?"

His face grew very serious. Arya wasn't quite sure what made her ask it. Perhaps she'd had too much ale. The serving wench had already refilled her large mug once, and it was strong ale indeed.

The Forgotten Ones. In the world of the Faceless Men, these were the people left behind who faded into distant memory and were so thoroughly forgotten that, after long enough, no memory at all of them remained. In a way, Arya's old family was becoming a whole lot of Forgotten Ones. She could hardly see Sansa's face now. Her mother's voice no longer rang clearly in her head. Even her father's smile had faded in her memory.

Why? Well, people were prone to forgetting in the first place, but servants of the Red God even more so. In some ways, they remembered everything they had ever done and learned, better than anyone else could hope to do. In other ways, they retained no memories of their former lives and over time lost all sense of who they once were. It was, perhaps, the most frightening part of Arya's new life for her.

"Silly, lovely girl." Jaqen shook his head and drunkenly took another swig of ale. Arya noticed the slur in his words and suppressed a smile. "A man was gone from a girl for what seemed like ages, but never would a man allow himself to forget you. Never, ever, Arya Stark."

He reached anxiously across the table for Arya's hand and drew her fingers to his lips as though she were slipping away. He kissed her hand fervently and inhaled the scent of her skin deeply. The sensation sent shivers through Arya's body and made her eyes flutter shut. When she opened them again, he was staring at her with his piercing icy eyes, glazed with drink. His face was different, but his eyes were as piercing as always. Arya murmured,

"I think perhaps we should leave."

"Perhaps a girl is right," Jaqen agreed blearily. "My abode is closer to this establishment than the house in which a girl rents a room. Let us go there."

Arya nodded her consent, and Jaqen plunked down a few coins as final payment onto the table before rising shakily onto his legs and extending a hand to Arya. She thought people must have thought her a whore, striding drunkenly from the tavern as a lovely young blonde woman with a smarmy-looking older man, but she did not care. All she wanted was to get back to where Jaqen lived, change their faces, and kiss him as she knew him.

They stumbled through the streets, hands ever on the hilts of knives, until they reached a dark little house in an even darker street. The bitsy house looked like it had squeezed and popped its way out from between two normal-sized houses. Arya shrugged. Perhaps it had. Jaqen unlocked the door with a heavy key and stepped inside, lighting an oil lamp just inside the door and casting light on the tiny home.

There was no kitchen to speak of, just a few cupboards to store jugs and loaves. There was a small rickety table with two chairs before a little brick fireplace. There was a door to the back and to what Arya assumed was the outhouse.

Then came the very narrow staircase, up which Jaqen led Arya, carrying the oil lamp so shakily in his drunken hands that Arya seized it from him and carried it herself. She judged herself less intoxicated than he was.

Upstairs there was a little bedroom, small in footprint but with admittedly high ceilings. Jaqen had managed to get a four-poster bed in the room, and, though it took up nearly the whole space, Arya admitted to herself that it was a nice thing for a man like Jaqen to have. The bed was heavy, dark wood with gauzy white linens draped around it, and Arya could see it better by the moment as Jaqen lit a fire in the fireplace.

While she had her back turned to him, Arya changed her face, sweeping her hand in front of her and feeling herself transform back to her default appearance - Arya Stark. When she turned round, she saw that Jaqen had done the same thing; he now appeared to her in the face in which she knew him, his chiseled face glowing in the light of the fire and his eyes glinting despite their drunken state.

"A girl is lovely, as always," Jaqen grinned finally, just when Arya was wondering if he was ever going to speak again.

"And a man is painfully handsome."

Jaqen reached for a pitcher that was sitting on the mantle above the fireplace and poured two cups of water. He handed one to Arya, and she gratefully accepted, swigging down the cool liquid and watching as Jaqen did the same. She handed the empty metal cup back to Jaqen and whispered,

"A girl would be taken tonight."

"Yes." Jaqen nodded and swirled his water around.

Arya's eyes went round as saucers. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting him to say when she suggested sex, but she had been certain would be some form of the word, 'no.'

But for him to agree, to simply say, 'Yes,' almost made Arya second-guess herself. Why was he so ready now when other nights he'd been so unwilling?

"Never mind," Arya sighed exasperatedly. "It's only because you're drunk that you've agreed."

"A man's consumption of ale has nothing to do with his decision," Jaqen insisted. "It is because a man has seen a girl at work. She is grown. She is ready for anything in the world, at the very least this."

At that, Arya felt the corners of her lips curl up a bit, because he had confidence in her, and that made her very happy indeed. She was suddenly overcome with nerves, though, for she had no idea what she was doing when it came to sex.

No matter. For years she had humbled herself and learned from tutors. She could do the same with Jaqen.

"Teach me," she murmured, her voice cracking with want.

He smiled a little at her and put his cup down on the mantle. He strode confidently to her and took her hand, bringing her to the bed and hoisting her up upon it. She sat on its edge while Jaqen stood between her knees.

He took her face in his hands and leaned down to kiss her, and Arya tasted earth and citrus and ale. She kissed him back, knowing that, at least, she had a bit of practice with that now. Her little fingers reached for the tunic that he wore, frantically unlacing at his shoulders until the garment lifted easily over his head. Then she pawed at his shirt, and that, too, was removed with haste. She stared at his sculpted torso, smooth and built, and coursed her fingers across his pectorals and down across his stomach.

He kissed her again, and this time his mouth left hers and ventured to her neck. Arya could not help herself; she cried out when he kissed her there, on her sensitive skin. Her hands flew like they were on fire to the laces at his waist and tugged on his leggings as she'd done when she'd pleasured him with her mouth.

Jaqen was moving more quickly now, to undress her, as well. He was peeling off her vest and shirt and massaging her breasts with some care. He untied the skirt at her waist and pulled it from beneath her, and tugged her leggings down and tossed them onto the growing heap of clothing beside the bed.

Soon, neither one of them had any clothes on at all, and as Jaqen looked hungrily at Arya, she gulped with sudden trepidation.

"A girl is frightened," Jaqen observed, and it was not a question.

Arya shrugged. "Will it hurt?" she asked fearfully, "When it tears?"

"A girl has endured far worse in her dancing lessons," Jaqen assured her with a little grin. "A man will be very, very gentle."

True to his word, Jaqen did not mount Arya or put her on all fours, but instead urged her to lie on her side and positioned himself behind her. As he spooned with her, Arya felt his erection, hard and ready, poking at her thighs, and she felt her heart race and her breath shake.

As if in response to her body's unsteady emotions, Jaqen's hand coursed around Arya's shoulders, his fingers brushing gently against her breasts, and caressed her torso comfortingly.

He pulled himself flush against her, parting her legs with his knee and guiding himself toward her wet entrance. Arya felt herself practically hyperventilating now, frightened for all the world of what was to come and angry at herself for feeling such stupid fear. Then, Jaqen's voice vibrated in her ear and all her negative emotions evaporated in an instant.

"A man loves a girl, very much indeed."

He pushed into her then, and even though he was gentle, Arya could still feel herself tear against his tip. Jaqen persisted and continued entering, and Arya was overwhelmed. She tried to pay attention to the physical sensations, but all she could hear were his words, his buzzing voice, telling her he loved her.

From somewhere far away, or perhaps just behind her, Jaqen kissed her ear and whispered,

"Is a girl in too much pain?"

Pain... what pain? Arya felt no pain at all, only the bliss of his love and the soft touch of his hand on her breasts. She could feel herself grinning, and she could feel him throbbing inside her. Distantly, perhaps, she could feel a twinge of stinging where she'd torn, could feel a few dribbles of blood, but it was so negligible given everything else magical that was transpiring.

So Arya simply shook her head. No, she was not in too much pain.

She realized he had stopped moving for a moment, and she desperately wanted - needed - him to continue, so she breathlessly beseeched him,

"Keep going, Jaqen, please..." Her voice was little more than a mewling moan, and she found herself panting through her pleasure. Jaqen seemed to gather himself, taking a deep, trembling breath behind Arya, before pulling out and pushing in again.

He continued, rhythmically pushing in and pulling out over and again at a constant but pleasant tempo. Eventually, his fingers drifted from Arya's breasts down between her thighs and twiddled a bit with her nub. Arya cried out, moaning and repeating his name. She bent forward, pushing her bum hard against his pelvis in search of a deeper angle of penetration as she approached her climax. Finally, when his fingers were drenched in her essence, she spasmed hard around his member, gasping for breath.

That seemed to throw Jaqen off some sort of edge, and he suddenly pulled himself out of Arya, leaving her acutely feeling his absence as she recovered from her orgasm. She turned her head over her shoulder to see him clutching his member and tossing his bare, muscular legs of the side of the bed. He reached for the chamber pot beneath the bed and stroked himself into it. Arya watched as his seed came in long, hot streams into the pot. As it did, Jaqen's face twisted into a look meshing pain and pleasure.

When he'd finished, Jaqen collapsed onto his back and sighed deeply. Arya pulled herself into the crook of his shoulder and traced her fingers around his bare chest.

"Did you mean it?" she asked. Jaqen did not ask her to clarify. He knew full well that she was referring to his declaration of love.

"Of course." Jaqen kissed the top of Arya's head and sighed again. "A man has loved a girl since before he saw her, and he loves her with passion now."

Arya planted a soft kiss on his sternum and looked into his icy eyes. "I've loved you, too, Jaqen H'ghar... or, whatever your name really is."


End file.
